Post-translational modifications such as acetylation are very crucial regulatory modules at the heart of biological processes in the cells and are tightly regulated by a multitude of enzymes. Histones are the chief protein components of chromatin and act as spools around which DNA strands. Also, the balance of histone acetylation and deacetylation is a critical role in the regulation of gene expression.
Histone deacetylases (HDACs) are enzymes that remove acetyl groups from lysine residues on histone proteins of chromatin, and are known to be associated with gene silencing and induce cell cycle arrest, angiogenic inhibition, immune regulation, cell death, etc. (Hassig et al., Curr. Opin. Chem. Biol. 1997, 1, 300-308). In addition, it was reported that the inhibition of enzymatic function of HDACs induces the apoptosis of cancer cells in vivo by reducing the activity of cancer cell survival-associated factors and activating cancer cell apoptosis-associated factors (Warrell et al, J. Natl. Cancer Inst. 1998, 90, 1621-1625).
In humans, 18 HDACs have been identified and are subdivided into four classes based on their homology to yeast HDACs. Among them, 11 HDACs use zinc as a cofactor and can be divided into three groups: Class I (HDAC1, 2, 3 and 8), Class II (IIa: HDAC4, 5, 7 and 9; IIb: HDAC6 and 10), Class IV (HDAC 11). Additionally, 7 HDACs of Class III (SIRT 1-7) require NAD+ instead of zinc as a cofactor (Bolden et al., Nat. Rev. Drug Discov. 2006, 5(9), 769-784).
Various HDAC inhibitors are in preclinical or clinical development, but to date, only non-selective HDAC inhibitors have been identified as anticancer agents, and only vorinostat (SAHA) and romidepsin (FK228) have been approved for the treatment of cutaneous T-cell lymphoma. However, non-selective HDAC inhibitors are known to cause side effects such as fatigue and nausea, generally at high doses (Piekarz et al., Pharmaceuticals 2010, 3, 2751-2767). Such side effects have been reported to be due to the inhibition of class I HDACs. Due to such side effects, the use of non-selective HDAC inhibitors in the development of drugs other than anticancer drugs has been limited (Witt et al., Cancer Letters, 2009, 277, 8-21).
Meanwhile, it was reported that the selective inhibition of class II HDACs would not show toxicity shown in the inhibition of class I HDACs. Also, when selective HDAC inhibitors are developed, side effects such as toxicity, which are caused by the non-selective HDAC inhibition, can be overcome. Thus, selective HDAC inhibitors have potential to be developed as therapeutic agents effective for the treatment of various diseases (Matthias et al., Mol. Cell. Biol. 2008, 28, 1688-1701).
It is known that HDAC6, a member of Class IIb HDACs, is present mainly in the cytoplasm and is involved in the deacetylation of a number of non-histone substrates (HSP90, cortactin, etc.), including tubulin, (Yao et al., Mol. Cell 2005, 18, 601-607). HDAC6 has two catalytic domains, and the zinc finger domain of C-terminal can bind to ubiquitinated proteins. It is known that HDAC6 has a number of non-histone proteins as substrates, and thus plays an important role in various diseases, including cancer, inflammatory diseases, autoimmune diseases, neurological diseases and neurodegenerative disorders (Santo et al., Blood 2012 119: 2579-258; Vishwakarma et al., International Immunopharmacology 2013, 16, 72-78; Hu et al., J. Neurol. Sci. 2011, 304, 1-8).
The common structural characteristic of various HDAC inhibitors is a structure consisting of a cap group, a linker and a zinc-binding group (ZBG), as shown in the following Vorinostat structure. Many researchers have conducted studies on enzyme inhibitory activity and selectivity by structurally modifying the cap group and the linker. Among these groups, the zinc-binding group is known to play a more important role in enzyme inhibitory activity and selectivity (Wiest et al., J. Org. Chem. 2013 78: 5051-5065; Methot et al., Bioorg. Med. Chem. Lett. 2008, 18, 973-978).

The zinc-binding group is generally a hydroxamic acid or benzamide derivative. Herein, the hydroxamic acid derivative exhibits a potent HDAC inhibitory effect, but has problems of low bioavailability and severe off-target activity. In addition, the benzamide derivative has a problem in that it can produce toxic metabolites in vivo, because it contains aniline (Woster et al., Med. Chem. Commun. 2015, online publication).
Accordingly, there is a need for the development of selective HDAC 6 inhibitors for treatment of diseases such as cancer, inflammatory diseases, autoimmune diseases, neurological diseases and neurodegenerative disorders, which have a zinc-binding group with improved bioavailability and, at the same time, cause no side effects, unlike non-selective inhibitors that cause side effects.